Doing More with Less –Sure-Fire Tips to Stretch Your Marketing Budget

Jennifer CulbertsonLooking Glass MarketingSeptember 21, 2010

Today’s Discussion

Your Feedback

• Where are you spending the greatest part of your marketing budget?

• What have you cut back on?

• Implementing other types of tactics that are new?

Flat47%

Up40%

Down13%

2010 vs. 2009 budgets

2010 Marketing Budgets

BtoB magazine: “2010 Outlook: Marketing Priorities and Plans”

B2B Marketers Focus

• Top marketing goals for B2B marketers:

– Customer acquisition

– Customer retention

– Brand awareness

• Of those marketers that increased budgets:

– 80% boosted online spending

– 24% increased direct mail spending

– 21% increased events spending

BtoB magazine: “2010 Outlook: Marketing Priorities and Plans”

Online Marketing Focus

• Top areas for online spending increases include:

1. Web site development

2. Email marketing

3. SEO

4. Social media

5. Video

6. Webcasts

BtoB magazine: “2010 Outlook: Marketing Priorities and Plans”

When Will Things Improve?

• Most marketers – in small and large businesses – look at first half of 2010 as the year the recession begins fading away and we see significant growth

Top Areas of Focus Mix of online marketing and traditional tactics:

Online/Inbound marketing• Website• SEO• Blogging• Social media

• LinkedIn• FaceBook• Twitter• YouTube

Content development Public relations Referral marketing (referral sources and existing customers)

Online Marketing

Online/Inbound Marketing

• Inbound marketing defined – attracting people to your business– Focus on your website

– SEO

– Blog

– Social networking

Inbound Marketing• “Inbound” marketing (using the web to help drive qualified

prospects) can be much more cost effective

• Attracting prospects who are interested in your products/services, offers/content, and company

• Higher number of leads are going to be qualified because they are seeking you out

• Average cost-per-lead is significantly less than what it would cost for leads generated through traditional outbound marketing techniques

Website• Content:

– Content on website consumed differently than on paper:

• 79% of users scan the page instead of reading word-for-word

• Reading from computer screens is 25% slower than from paper

• Web content should have 50% of the word count of its paper equivalent

– Clear, concise, easy to view—and repeated in several ways, on several pages—and easily searched

• Offers and Calls to action:

– Have compelling offers (white papers, events, podcasts, case studies, articles, demos, etc.)

– Use Action Words - “Learn more.” “Find out why.” “Buy.” “Contact Us.” Visitors appreciate it when you clearly tell them what to do. And why. For example, “Download your free six-step guide to hiring your next IT consultant.”

Website• Landing pages:

– Build dedicated landing pages

– Don’t send prospects to your home page – make it easy for visitors to obtain information

– Dedicated web landing pages can nearly double the conversion rates of potential prospects responding to your marketing programs and offers

• Benchmark:

– Website Grader (www.websitegrader.com) that measures and scores the marketing effectiveness of a website

– Looks at website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors and provides some basic advice on how you can improve your website from a marketing perspective

Search Engine Optimization

• Optimizing your site so search engines can find you

• SEO is one of the least expensive forms of marketing with strong ROI

• According to HubSpot:– 25% of SEO is on the actual pages of site (content, titles,

headers, keywords)

– 75% of SEO is off page – outside of your site (how people are finding you)

Search Engine Optimization • On page – Building a foundation

– Page text, Page titles, URL, Tags -• Check out the Microsoft Partner Network - Marketing Pointers

https://partner.microsoft.com/US/salesmarketingsection/smcampaigns/rtgpointers

– Keywords - finding the best keywords through research tools• www.goodkeywords.com• www.wordtracker.com• Google keyword tool -

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal• Off page – Links that point to site and search engines pick up

– The more incoming links, the higher your page will rank– You can easily pull up a list of sites that link to yours. In Google's search

box, simply type Link:yoursitename – Get the links by creating great content through blogging, podcasts, videos,

press releases, etc.

Blogging, are you?Why is Blogging Important?

• SEO, Fresher Content = Better WebsiteSites that get crawled more often have more frequent updates and more authority. Blogging consistently ensures there will be fresh content on your site.

• Every Blog Article is an SEO Opportunity - You can’t realistically optimize your site for every search term, but you can certainly write blog posts targeting niche keyword phrases that are likely to draw highly qualified prospects.

• Blogs Are Link Bait – Blogging can be powerful from a linking standpoint. People welcome linking in blogs so more links back to your site, means better search engine rankings.

• Gain Visibility as a Thought Leader - demonstration of your thought leadership, and professional insights.

Source

Are-You-Missing-the-Boat.aspx

Getting Started with BlogsSearch out and begin commenting on other people’s blogs:

• Search for relevant Blogs

– Blogsearch.Google.com

– Technorati.com

– Icerocket.com

• Commenting

– Share an example

– Share useful links

– Ask a question

• Other blogs for Dynamics partners

– ERP Software Blog www.erpsoftwareblog.com

– CRM Software Blog www.crmsoftwareblog.com

Company Blogging• Start your own company Blog

– Greater commitment but well worth it

– Syndicate blog on other sites such as the Microsoft Dynamics Community site https://community.dynamics.com/

• Monitor and measure your own blog – www.blogpulse.com

– Helps analyze and report on the daily activity of your blog

– Who’s responding and linking to blog

– Trends in blog activity

– What blogs are similar to yours

Social Networking Stats• Social networking now accounts for 11 percent of all time spent online in

the U.S.• Nearly 1 in 10 Internet visits ends up at a social network• Nearly 1 in 4 page views is on a social networking site• Forrester Research study showed 92% of B2B technology buyers consider

themselves engaging in some form of social media

How Marketer’s View Social Media

Do you agree or disagree that Social Media will…

Compliment other tactics

Standard tactic

Budget for it

Obstacles w/Social Media

Source: B2B Marketing Goes Social: A White Horse Survey Report, 2010

B2B Marketers Internal Obstacles:

•Insufficient Staff

•Prefer Traditional Marketing

•Perceived as Irrelevant

•Need to prove ROI

Social Marketing Budgets are Up

• 29% plan to boost budgets for social media this year

• How much budget allocated to Social Media?– 1-5% of budget – 35% of respondents

– 6-10% of budget – 21% of respondents

– 11-15% of budget – 8% of respondents

– 16-20% of budget – 4% of respondents

– More than 20% of budget – 7% of respondents

Study: “The Impact of Social Media on Search” B2B Magazine and Business.com, July 2010

Top Goals for Social Media

1. Building brand awareness

2. Generating leads

3. Developing deeper engagement with customers

4. Improving search results – Top ways marketers using it to improve search results?

• Driving inbound links

• Expanding profiles and social media accounts on major search engines

• Monitoring social media conversations to influence organic SEO and keyword purchases

Study: “The Impact of Social Media on Search” B2B Magazine and Business.com, July 2010

Social Media Measurement

• 41% of respondents said that they are not currently measuring impact of social media on company’s search performance

– Of those who are measuring, most common metrics include:

• Organic search rankings

• Number of inbound links

• Search volume for keyword phrases or brand

Study: “The Impact of Social Media on Search” B2B Magazine and Business.com, July 2010

Popular Social Media Monitoring Tools

• Social Media Monitoring Tools– Hootsuite (www.hootsuite.com) – manage multiple

networks, multiple users contributing, manage stats/results

– SocialMention (www.socialmention.com) - social media search and analysis

– Radian6 (www.radian6.com) – listen, measure, analyze, report on social media efforts

– TweetBurner (www.tweetburner.com) – tracks links you share on Twitter

Study: “The Impact of Social Media on Search” B2B Magazine and Business.com, July 2010

Social Networking Resources

• Social Media Tips - Microsoft Partner Network -https://partner.microsoft.com/US/40124766

• Online Marketing Guide - Microsoft Partner Network https://partner.microsoft.com/global/salesmarketingsection/smmarketingcenter/40073320

Custom Content Development

“Content is key . . . you can never have enough of it and you have

to keep cycling it and keep it relevant for the audience you serve.”

— Laura Ramos, former VP, Forrester Research

What’s Driving Content Development?

• What is driving BtoB marketers to spend more on developing content?– Search engines drive need for content and

worthwhile website content

– Social media has forced companies to create content that can be shared via vast network of connections

– Lead generation in B-to-B space forcing companies to produce original content (i.e. blogs, white papers, guides, reports)

How Is Content Being Used?• According to recent report “B2B Content Marketing 2010 Benchmarks,

Budgets and Trends”, B-to-B marketers are spending a quarter of their budgets on creating custom content.

• Marketers view content as a way to build thought-leadership and foster stronger relationships

• How are marketers using content?

– Social media to communicate it

– Blogs

– Article postings and syndication on various sites

• Biggest challenge:

– Creating engaging content and produce enough of it

Great Online Content…• Is written with a target reader in mind. For content to succeed, you must pick a

clear target. One size does not fit all.• Should be repurposed. Just because you put something “out there” once doesn’t

mean that the target audience saw it, so you need to keep pushing out the same messages—with new twists and fresh formats.

• Is search-engine friendly. Content without links only works if you operate in an undiscovered or uncompetitive niche. Make sure you optimize your content.

• Is authoritative. Make sure the content is original, not sales-y and demonstrates your company’s expertise, not lifted from outsiders or distilled from brochures.

• Is easy to find and easy to scan. Is your content “brain-friendly”, meaning will people read on? Use subheads, bulleted lists, callouts, sidebars, charts and photos with captions to break up the pages.

• Can be interactive and visual. Use cool tools as “link bait”—something other sites will read about and want to link to. Create a web-based ROI calculator or cool demo video.

• Is dynamic and changing. Business is constantly changing and prospects have new questions and concerns that must be addressed. Make sure your website is fresh and not static.

Content Development Options

• Blogs, articles, guides, web copy, white papers, case studies, etc.

• Internal resources – marketing, consultants

• External resources– Freelance journalists

– Freelancers writers:• www.guru.com

• www.elance.com

• www.textbroker.com

• www.lookingglassmarketing.com

Public Relations

Why PR?

• Build credibility– People are scrutinizing their purchasing decisions– Look to credible sources of information to help make that

decision

• Do more with less– Public relations costs less than many advertising and marketing

techniques– Allows you to reach target markets with a variety of mediums

including news releases, media interviews, events, newsletters, blogs, etc.

• Journalists looking for stories– Media cutbacks – More open to pitches and ideas

Get Ahead of Curve

• Proactive PR

– Study by McGraw Hill - businesses that boosted their public relations, and marketing during a recession grew 275% over the 5 years proceeding.

– Those businesses that cut back on it, only grew 19%.

Strong ROI

• PR strong ROI provides a better return on investment than many other forms of communication.

• A story that gets media or online coverage can reach thousands of readers, viewers and listeners vs. an ad or a piece of direct of mail.

• A lot of opportunity with PR and with minor effort, you can see strong results.

Press Releases and Endless Possibilities• Refreshed content and visibility in search engines - News releases are

often the best quality and most frequently updated content a company produces

• News releases should contain links – Getting backlinks from credible news sites which increases the ranking of your website

• Unlimited audience - Tens of thousands of headline impressions across hundreds of blogs, websites, and news sites that run RSS headlines

• Ideas for press releases:

– CEO speaking at a conference? Write a release.– Win an award? Write a release.– Have a new take on an old problem? Write a release.– New employees at your company? Write a release.– Add a product feature or service offering? Write a release.– Win a new customer? Write a release.– Publish a white paper? Write a release.– Have a new case study? Write a release.

News Release Tips

• Press release should be compelling and focused.

• Press release headline or title is the single most important piece when it comes to SEO.

• Use keywords in the first sentence of the initial paragraph and throughout the body content of the release.

• Use anchor text or hyperlinks to specific URL’s.

• Optimize your boilerplate

• Publish as blog/RSS on your website

• Keep it short! Search engines spider the first 300 – 500 words on a page.

News Release Distribution

• Business Wire (www.bizwire.com)• PR Newswire (www.prnewswire.com)• Market Wire (www.marketwire.com)• Vocus (www.vocus.com)• PR Web (www.prweb.com) • PRLog (www.prlog.org)• eReleases (www.ereleases.com)• Why consider distribution service?

– The larger/more expensive services tend to have better distribution.

– “Free” or cheap services seem to have smaller distribution.– But my basic research indicates you do get what you pay for.– What is a “permanent” link worth to you?

Fuel Your Marketing

• Repurpose published articles or stories:

– Post on website, create a “News” area on site with links

– Use in newsletters, blogs, social media

– Use in sales process and nurture marketing

– Send to customers

– Use article reprints at events and trade shows

Referral Marketing

Feedback

• What are you doing from a referral perspective?

• Do you get referrals?

• Do you provide referrals?

• Informal? Formal program?

Importance of Referrals

• The act of being referred is a validation of your value and credibility

• Potential customer has already been pre-sold

• Have a high return-on-investment –small efforts that don’t cost a lot of $$

• Generate high quality customers and business for the company

Why Don’t We Get More Referrals?

• Referral source is not educated on our products/services

• Thinks you may be too busy• Questions your ability to deliver• Does not feel comfortable putting his/her

reputation on the line• Referral source is unsure of what he/she will

get out of it• Don’t actively seek and communicate with

referral sources – no consistency

Possible Referral Sources

• Customers and their contacts

• Vendors

• Partners

• IAMCP members

• Industry association leaders/members

• Centers of Influence– CPA’s

– Bankers

– Consultants

Getting Started

• Develop list of key referral sources – start small

• Develop plan and calendar to make regular contact

• Set yourself apart – what makes you different, focus on messaging, offers and theme

Ongoing Communication“Out of sight means out of mind”

• Mailings– Topical articles– Reprints– Letters– Thank you notes

• Meetings– Personal, one-on-one meetings – Seminars– Receptions, dinners, events– Association activities

• Email– Forward items of interest– Quick notes, etc.

• Phone

Monitor and Track

• Number of referrals received/given

• Types of referrals

• Frequency of contact and type of activity

• Follow-up efforts

• Close ratio

Distinction in Marketing Winner Referral Program

CAL Business Solutions

• Had good referrals but didn’t encourage or market to referrals

• Identified Top 10 referral sources (Vendors, Centers of Influence – CPAs, other Microsoft partners)

• 12-month multi-touch campaign included:

• Personalized letters, emails, dimensional direct mail

• Thank you letter and gift for referrals

• $250 gift card for any closed business

• Educational offers

• Tips & Tricks

• Face-to-face meetings

• Integrated social networking through LinkedIn

Example: Dimensional MailerBusiness letter

Lumpy Mailer

Example: Business LetterWhite paper offerBusiness letter with Gift Card

• Tracking and Measurement :

– CAL used Excel and Microsoft Dynamics CRM to track both the leads it received from referral sources and the ones CAL provided in return.

• Results:√ Generated 20 leads

√ Closed a half dozen sales

√ Increased the percentage of closed leads it received from referrals from 42% in FY08 to 60% in FY09

√ $2,800 spent and huge ROI (50%+)!

Distinction in Marketing Winner Referral Program

Referral Marketing Checklist

Can’t afford not to be integrating referrals into your marketing efforts

Start small - develop list of top possible referral sources

Develop plan to communicate

Offer information that is educational

Consistency and follow-up is key

Measure and track

Tracking and Measurement

Tracking, Measurement and ROI

• Make sure you track and measure campaign results – know that your budget is working the hardest it can– Each campaign/program should have a goal or objective (est. #

new leads to result in $XXX)– Track:

• Campaign costs, # of touches, # of responses, # of leads generated, # of sales generated, $ revenue generated, campaign ROI

• Use CRM system to implement campaigns and track results • Dynamics Marketing Planning Template and “Quick Calc”

(Lead Calculator) -https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/sales/promotions/marketingplanningtemplate.htm?printpage=false&stext=marketing%20planning%20template

• Monitor results and make adjustments!

Microsoft Marketing Resources

Microsoft Marketing Resources• Ready-to-go campaigns –Turnkey programs

– http://www.mspartnerdirect.com/action/microsoft/site/Home;jsessionid=FEFCB7EC4F3AF9493F66954A636009E1.www1?GageSessionID=x

• Vertical marketing materials – Templates multi-touch campaigns

– https://partner.microsoft.com/40020485?msp_id=vertical

• Microsoft Partner Events – tap into live events and or develop your own through events-in-the-box

– https://www.microsoftpartnerevents.com

• Click-to-attend - event search and registration system powered by Microsoft

– https://www.clicktoattend.com

• Sign-up for Marketing Professional Community – training as well as information and tools to help you in marketing efforts.

– https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/communities/marketing/

Final Thoughts• Keep marketing and be smart about budgets• Online marketing – make greater investment, try new

tactics and integrate into traditional marketing• Content development – create unique, thoughtful

content focused on audience needs• Integrate PR into your efforts for unlimited possibilities• Focus on referral marketing to build relationships and

generate new business• Integrate Microsoft marketing resources into your mix • Track and measure – make sure your marketing $$ are

working for you

Wrap Up• Marketing consulting organization with expertise working with Microsoft

Dynamics partner organizations to drive new marketing opportunities and results. Services include:

• Virtual Marketing Director program

• Marketing Execution and Project Management

• On-demand Marketing Resource Desk via Email

• Writing and Content Development

• Provide your email/business card to receive a copy of the presentation and be added to receive marketing tips and tricks

• Go to www.lookingglassmarketing.com sign-up to receive marketing tips and tricks.

• Complete your evaluation form.

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Contact information:

Jennifer Culbertson

jennifer@lookingglassmarketing.com

www.lookingglassmarketing.com

614-453-5927

THANK YOUPlease complete your evaluation.